Good morning. President Trump has nominated a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission commissioner and cryptocurrency policy lead at venture-capital firm a16z to run the derivatives market regulator.

Brian Quintenz, a Republican, served as a CFTC commissioner between 2017 and 2021, and led the agency’s technology advisory committee that hosted public policy discussions and briefings.

• Big on blockchain: “The CFTC plays a critical role in maintaining robust hedging and price discovery markets that are the envy of the globe,” Quintenz said in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday. “The agency is also well poised to ensure the U.S.A. leads the world in blockchain technology and innovation. I look forward to working with President Trump’s incredible financial regulatory team.”
  
  Quintenz often spoke favorably of cryptocurrencies while serving at the CFTC, calling it in 2020 an “incredibly innovative space, with the potential to offer great efficiencies and enhancements to the markets.” He also invested in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, a bitcoin investment vehicle, later that year, according to his financial disclosures.
   
• Crypto and finance background: Quintenz most recently worked as the head of policy at a16z crypto, Andreessen Horowitz’s cryptocurrency arm. Quintenz also serves as a board member at event contracts trading exchange Kalshi and previously was an advisory council member at crypto exchange Crypto.com, according to his profile on LinkedIn.
  
  Before joining the CFTC in 2017, Quintenz worked in finance. He founded and was a managing partner at Saeculum Capital Management, where he developed and implemented the firm’s long-term investment strategy, including its commodity-focused hedge fund. Early in his career, Quintenz served as a senior policy aid to members of Congress.
   

Note to readers: There will be no Morning Risk Report on Monday in observance of Presidents Day. We’ll be back Tuesday.

Barclays faces probe from U.K. regulator over money-laundering controls.

Barclays faces an investigation from the U.K.’s financial watchdog over its anti-money-laundering and financial crimes controls, the London-based institution has disclosed.

The Financial Conduct Authority, the U.K.’s main financial services regulator, is conducting a civil enforcement investigation into Barclays’s controls, the bank said Thursday in its annual report. Barclays is cooperating with the investigation, it said.

Co-founders of crypto mining service HashFlare plead guilty

Two Estonian nationals who founded cryptocurrency mining service HashFlare each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday.

Federal prosecutors said Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin sold contracts worth more than $577 million to customers for a share of cryptocurrency mined by HashFlare between 2015 and 2019. Prosecutors alleged that HashFlare didn’t have the computing capacity required to perform the level of mining claimed by the two founders, and that HashFlare operated as a “massive, multi-faceted cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme” in which the two defendants used the proceeds to purchase real estate and luxury cars. 

Attorneys for Potapenko and Turõgin said the two defendants admitted to making false statements regarding the level of mining at HashFlare, but said the firm did mine crypto. 

• The Justice Department’s order to dismiss charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams triggered a series of resignations Thursday and ignited a feud between top Trump appointees and career prosecutors.
   
• The Atlantic, Politico, Vox and other major publishers are suing AI startup Cohere for copyright and trademark infringement, escalating the news industry’s legal battle over the technology.
   
• Meta Platforms is rolling out a new partnership program to appease European Union antitrust regulators that will let rival classified advertisement companies list ads on Facebook Marketplace in the EU.
   
• Gamblers claim in recent lawsuits that online betting company DraftKings used VIP hosts to fuel spending while ignoring addiction.
   
• In the nearly three months since Trump picked him to lead the agency, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has been turning the screws.
   
• An Ohio-based supplier of aircraft parts was charged over an alleged illicit export scheme involving Russia.

Trump orders federal agencies to study reciprocal tariffs.

President Trump ordered federal agencies on Thursday to explore how to adjust U.S. tariffs to match those of other countries, a move that threatens international rules in place for decades.

The order stops short of actually imposing the tariffs immediately, as many foreign capitals feared, and instead directs the Commerce Department and the U.S. trade representative to deliver reports on the steps to be taken to achieve reciprocal trading status. Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick said those studies should be completed by April 1.

• Where Is Trump’s Tariff Strategy Going?
• Auto Executives Try to Sway Trump on Tariffs, EV Subsidies

Strong storm threatens fire-weary Los Angeles.

A powerful storm moved through the Los Angeles region Thursday, flooding streets, prompting evacuation warnings, and threatening mudslides in fire-ravaged areas.

By Thursday evening, a debris flow had closed Mulholland Drive, which weaves through the Hollywood Hills. In Malibu, mud flowed down steep hills onto the iconic Pacific Coast Highway.

Places toward the west, including Topanga and Malibu, were under evacuation orders or warnings ahead of possible mudslides or flash floods. The alerts covered thousands of people, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Authorities said they could expand the evacuation warnings depending on how the storm develops.

• The number of Americans who filed for new jobless benefits fell last week, according to the Department of Labor.
   
• Escalating immigration raids and deportations are prompting some migrants to stay home from work, unsettling employers in industries that have long relied on foreign-born labor.
   
• President Trump’s announcement of peace talks with Russia has handed Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin what he has long demanded: direct talks with the U.S. over Ukraine.
   
• China’s central bank has signaled potential policy changes to meet growing external challenges, pledging to keep supporting the yuan as trade frictions weigh on the currency.

• More accounting firms are adding chief growth officers to their ranks as smaller players aim to stay competitive amid fast-paced expansion and dealmaking in the traditionally staid industry.
   
• The SEC, now under Republican control, is making it easier for companies to shoot down shareholder proposals on hot-button political issues.
   
• Silicon Valley investors remain optimistic that AI can deliver trillions of dollars in business value, even as they agree that the technology has continued to feed a now yearslong hype cycle.
   
• Private-equity firms continue to pitch first-time funds despite a tough market environment.

• German police detained an Afghan refugee after a car slammed into a crowd in Munich, wounding more than two dozen people in what authorities said was a suspected attack.
   
• A key staff member of the Department of Government Efficiency arrived Thursday at the headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service to review the tax agency’s operations, according to people familiar with the visit.
   
• The Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary on Thursday, putting a longtime critic of vaccines and the medical establishment in charge of the nation’s vast and powerful health apparatus.
   
• More than 40 years since its last Olympic hockey title, Team USA has a radical plan to conquer the world.

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